


it'll all come out in the wash

by Siria



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint, Phil, and laundry day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it'll all come out in the wash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flyakate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyakate/gifts).



> Written to a prompt by flyakate. Thanks to sheafrotherdon for betaing!

When Clint was a kid, laundry day was any day they managed to scrabble together a pocketful of quarters at the same time the circus stopped in a town big enough to have a laundromat. Mostly Clint was the one to haul their stuff down the street in a bulging, battered duffel bag. Barney didn’t care so much, not once he still had a couple pairs of clean underwear left, but Clint hated the looks on people’s faces when all he had left was sweat-stained t-shirts and grimy jeans—the looks that said they knew everything he was ever going to be in life, right then and there. 

(Not that an eleven-year-old had known much about doing laundry, of course, but if you turn all your underpants pale pink, you catch on pretty quick.)

Which was all a roundabout way of saying that Clint knew the importance of clean clothes, he liked the feel of a pair of boxers fresh out of the dryer just as much as the next guy, but no way he took laundry as seriously as Phil did. 

Clint eyed him from the door of the laundry room. “When the doctor said a strictly limited amount of light activity only—”

“This is light activity,” Phil said without looking around. 

The SHIELD doctors had released Phil into Clint's care with great reluctance. Clint hadn't been any more enthusiastic about taking him back to the newly-christened Avengers Tower, not really—not when Phil's scars were still raw and Clint had scarcely recovered any faith in the constancy of his own hands. But Phil hated hospitals, and Clint hadn't thought he could bear seeing Phil miserable for another moment. So here they were, both of them on mandatory medical leave and Phil doing his level best to ignore the 'mandatory' and 'medical' aspects. Clint could understand some of that—he couldn't exactly claim to be a model patient himself—but even at his most antsy, he couldn't remember throwing himself into laundry as some kind of release. 

(And with a washer-dryer designed by Tony Stark, Clint didn't think he'd ever want to. The machine was deep red with hints of gold in the trim, which was a sure sign that Stark took this personal colour scheme thing a bit too far, and Clint was saying that as someone who had a decided preference for purple. Not to mention that, in the middle of giving Clint what he'd termed the grand tour, Stark had stopped in the laundry room door, eyed the washer-dryer warily, and said, "So, uh, that one's still a bit… experimental. JARVIS, keep an eye on it, would you?") 

“C’mon,” Clint said. “Back to bed.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Phil said. 

Clint leaned against the doorjamb. “Back to bed,” he said again, “or I’ll call Natasha down here. Remember what happened the last time she caught you trying to do paperwork?”

That finally got Phil to look up at him, his expression wavering between exasperation and amusement. “That was a brand new StarkPad, you know.”

“Yeah,” Clint said. “Was. Past tense.” 

(Stark hadn’t been too pleased at first, but then he’d latched onto the idea of employing Natasha as a product tester. “No, seriously, it’ll be great! Think about it. Stark Industries will be the only company able to say that its tech can stand up to falls, immersion in water _and_ random attacks from moderately creepy ex-Soviet assassins.” Everyone had been pretty on board with Natasha kicking him in the shin.)

“It’s laundry day,” Phil said. “And it’s not going to do itself.”

Clint arched an eyebrow. “We live in a skyscraper designed by a genius billionaire. Pretty sure it can.” Frankly, Clint was surprised the damn thing hadn’t talked to them yet.

“If stains have a chance to set…” Phil looked faintly mulish, stubborn the way he got when he was so tired not even caffeine or SHIELD-authorised stimulants could perk him up—and there was no way Clint was letting him near either of those right now. It made Clint think of Ibadan, Caracas, Lucknow, all those missions where things had gone from bad to worse and Phil had pushed them on through with stubbornness and a preternatural attention to detail. He’d worn pretty much the same expression on those occasions, but what had been an asset then was a liability now. 

Clint walked into the room and hunkered down next to Phil. This close he could catalogue all over again the new lines of strain that had appeared around Phil’s eyes, his mouth; the way the lines of his face were still too sharp for Clint’s comfort. “C’mon,” Clint said again, as gently as he knew how. He pulled Phil’s hands away from the laundry hamper with its jumble of their boxers and Clint’s workout clothes. “They’ll still be there later. So what if it’s Saturday? It’s nap time now.”

Phil protested a little, but the fact that he stood when Clint did told Clint just how tired he truly was. “I just want to be doing something,” he said as Clint walked him back down the hallway to their bedroom. “Forced inactivity is—”

“Hey,” Clint said, coaxing him down to lie on the bed before tugging the covers up around him. “You’re not being inactive, you’re healing. You know that as well as I do, or do you want me to recite back that speech you gave me the time I broke my leg, huh?”

Phil smiled up at him, wan but genuine. “Pot and kettle, huh?”

“Little bit,” Clint confirmed before leaning in to press a kiss to Phil’s temple. “You getting better helps me, okay? Best job you could be doing right now.”

Phil yawned suddenly, wide and long enough that Clint’s jaw ached in sympathy. “Suppose I could have a nap, just for a while.”

“Sounds good,” Clint said. Between the painkillers and the antibiotics and who knew what else the docs had Phil on, he had no idea how he was awake as much as he was. 

Phil put one hand out over the covers and tangled the fingers of one hand with Clint’s. Clint squeezed back, relishing the gentle pressure and the catch of Phil’s gun calluses against his. Phil’s eyelids were definitely drooping, though he was making a valiant effort to stay awake. Clint would've cursed him for a stubborn son-of-a-bitch if that wasn’t one of the qualities that Clint had found attractive in the first place. “Wake me up in a little bit, okay? Can pair up socks while you fold.”

“Yeah, I will,” Clint said, lying with a blithe abandon that might have even impressed Tasha. “Couldn't do laundry without you. Hardly have any pink underwear anymore.”

“Hmpfh,” Phil said. 

“I mean, except what’s left over from the Milan mission,” Clint said, stretching out to lie beside him. He didn’t feel like napping just now, had plenty still to do before their apartment would be fully unpacked, but he had time to spend like this: lying there and watching Phil’s face, each steady rise and fall of his chest a reassurance. “But those were pink on purpose.”

“Ver’ thorough mission report that time,” Phil said, burrowing down further into the pillow. His eyes were closed now, lashes dark against pale cheeks.

Clint was particularly proud of that one, it was true—that was the mission report that had made Fury yell that he was a jackass right across the command bridge of the helicarrier. 

“So did I tell you,” Clint said, tone deliberately breezy, “that Cap said to say thank you for that tip? He bought a couple of those stain remover pens, keeps one in each of his suits. Says it’s a big help with blood stains.” 

Just as Clint had thought it would, the colour rose in Phil's cheeks. "Clint," he mumbled, "shut up and go 'sleep."

After a moment's hesitation, Clint said, "Sir, yes, sir," kicking his shoes off and nestling closer. There were boxes still to be unpacked, but that was the thing about making a home with someone—you did it little by little, every day, in folded socks and teasing and absent-minded touches. Little by little, and sometimes, you napped together first.


End file.
